


when the city's sleeping (you and I can stay awake and keep on dreaming)

by sol52



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Other, aka cigarettes, being gay on a rooftop, contemplation on a rooftop, look its quarantine and i just wanna climb on roofs okay, mention of alcohol consumption, other amis and co get mentioned but its just the boyz chillin, technically it's exr but like mostly its grantaire being dramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24126151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sol52/pseuds/sol52
Summary: Enjolras shut the rooftop door with another quiet click, cutting off the yellow light and once again bathing them both in the soft purple of dusk.Grantaire watched Enjolras walk over, heard thecrunch crunch crunchof his feet on the rooftop gravel. Saw him look out over the Paris skyline - part of Grantaire wanted to bring it up and ask Enjolras what he thought of when he saw the world spread out in front of them - if he felt the same ache ofhomeandthank youwhen he saw the city- he didn’t know what he’d do if Enjolras didn’t feel that too.He didn’t know what he’d do if he did.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	when the city's sleeping (you and I can stay awake and keep on dreaming)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fandomwarlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomwarlock/gifts).



> hello! casual writing practice that i liked more than i expected!
> 
> quick content warning that most of this fic is set with them sitting on the edge of a rooftop - there's nothing mentioning any suicidal ideations, in relation to the rooftop or not, but if that's something that doesn't work for u then take care of yourself!
> 
> title from. end of the day by one direction. some of their music slaps okay. cringe culture is dead. 
> 
> for my brother! love u!

The wind whipped around them both - Grantaire could feel strands of his hair poking into his face, his eyes, his ears.

He took a drag of his cigarette. Inhale. Exhale. Relief. 

He loved his friends- he could hear a peal of laughter spill out of the yellow window below, and he smiled. He loved his friends. He just needed a moment sometimes. Everything was just so much sometimes. 

And _God_ , there was nowhere better to escape to than the roof. Roofs, Grantaire mused to himself, felt some sort of sacred. He felt huge as well as tiny, powerful as well as insignificant, the center of it all as well as just another face in the crowd - just another person running around on top of things in Paris. Just another pair of shoes in the sky. There was something exhilarating about dangling his feet off the edge, feeling the weight of the nothingness for hundreds of meters under his toes. 

He gazed out across the city, still slightly lit by the mostly-set sun. Grantaire was an artist - the way the lights of a thousand lives, a thousand homes, a thousand loves and losses and laughter were spread out in front of him, like Christmas lights strung across the world, keeping watch in the night - what he wouldn’t give to be able to paint that. 

So, yeah. Roofs. 

Grantaire wrapped his jacket around himself tighter and cupped his hand around his cigarette against the wind. He closed his eyes.

Inhale. Exhale. Relief. 

He was halfway done with his cigarette when he heard the quiet _click-click_ of the door to the roof of Courfeyrac’s apartment building open behind him. He drank the city lights in one last time, then hauled himself around to face Jehan coming to check on him, or Bahorel coming to sit and smoke- and stopped short. 

Enjolras stood there with a hand on the doorframe. The yellow light of the stairwell flooded in behind him, bathing the concrete rooftop in a golden haze. 

For a moment Grantaire told himself that maybe someone else’s blond hair was glowing backlit from the stairwell’s luminance, maybe someone else’s hand was tucked quietly into a pocket, but- no. He recognized the hair and the hand in the pocket and the set of his shoulders and the way this shadow held himself, could have picked him out of a crowd a thousand times. Could have recognized his sigh across a busy cafe every day. 

He took another drag of his cigarette, eyes still fixed on the figure 10 paces away. 

Enjolras shut the rooftop door with another quiet click, cutting off the yellow light and once again bathing them both in the soft purple of dusk. 

Grantaire watched Enjolras walk over, heard the _crunch crunch crunch_ of his feet on the rooftop gravel. Saw him look out over the Paris skyline - part of Grantaire wanted to bring it up and ask Enjolras what he thought of when he saw the world spread out in front of them - if he felt the same ache of _home_ and _thank you_ when he saw the city- he didn’t know what he’d do if Enjolras didn’t feel that too. 

He didn’t know what he’d do if he did. 

Enjolras sat beside him quietly, one knee pulled up to his chest and one hanging a few feet away from Grantaire. 

Inhale. Exhale. Relief. 

Grantaire looked over at him. 

The wind had something to say tonight - while Grantaire’s mop of curls were always riotous, they were tucked under a beanie that kept him safe from the wind’s ministrations. Enjolras’ hair looked like it had developed a mind of its own, dancing a hazy golden tarantella in a haloed radius around Enjolras’ head. 

Grantaire kept looking. Enjolras stared over the city. 

If Grantaire had been dramatic, he would have said he could see the whole city reflected in Enjolras’ dark eyes. 

And well, he was dramatic, so there. It looked like a thousand tiny flecks of gold in his pupils, and Enjolras had a gentle quirk to his lips, and his hair was just _everywhere_ -

Grantaire looked away. 

He put his cigarette to his lips - it was almost burnt down to the bottom.  
Inhale. Exhale. Relief. 

He didn’t know how long it was before either of them spoke. Grantaire felt like their gentle serenity was on a roof’s edge as much as they were, and too much noise would send it tumbling right off, shattering on the concrete below. 

His friends made jokes, and okay, he had called him Apollo that one time, but Grantaire didn’t see Enjolras as a God. He knew he was human, had seen him cruel and petty and crushed. It was just - sometimes Grantaire would see him across the cafe tables, or walking down the street, or laughing at something Combeferre had said, or sitting on the edge of a roof with his hair dancing around him like a white-gold flame, and Grantaire would just feel this pang in his chest of God, how was this man real? How was he lucky enough to know him? How was Grantaire worthy of being in rooms with him and getting his texts and being in the photos on his phone and how was he worth sitting next to silently on a roof right now?

Once, Grantaire had articulated this all to Eponine, both of them plastered and draped over various furniture. It had been a long day for both of them, and Grantaire had slipped easily from telling her about his day to running into Jehan to Jehan mentioning something Enjolras said to- well. Grantaire didn’t need to run it all over in his head again, but Eponine had laughed at him and pushed him off the back of the couch. 

In hindsight, Grantaire mused to himself, he had definitely deserved it. 

Grantaire fixed his eyes on the skyline. The sun, which was mostly submerged below the horizon when he had arrived, now had a few sparse rays pressing through the night sky, but most everything was black. Paris at dusk felt like the beautiful present and forced you into the moment - but Paris at night felt like the future, felt like tomorrow, made Grantaire want to go. 

Paris was the second most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It was a city of yesterday, of today, of tomorrow, of forever. Grantaire raised a silent prayer to the city - _God, let me not fuck this up. Keep my mouth still if you cannot still my heart, he doesn’t want to hear me going on about Paris at night. Help me not fall off this fucking roof. Maybe give the wind a little chill._

Grantaire looked at the tired end of his cigarette, then pressed the end to the metal roof edge. He turned slightly to Enjolras, who’s gaze was locked on the horizon still.

Enjolras’s voice cut through the noise first, pressing just above the wind. 

“God, the city’s beautiful.”

Grantaire smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!  
> find me on [tumblr](permets-2.tumblr.com) to yell about these boys or many other things


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